Boxes of half dollars

[Coinage]

I have been having trouble trying to order boxes of halves. Been to 3 banks so far and each one has told me they don't deal with halves. I was wondering which banks have you been sucessful in ordering halves from?

[tedandcam]

I have had luck with my CU (2 branch operation) also a local bank ( with a total of 6 branches). Getting nervous about being cut off. My bank says they are considering a $5 fee for each box of halves (but not on other coins). I take that as a warning of what is coming. If that happens I'm going to shop my business. I figure I'll talk to different bank, CU's about opening an account and possibly take out a car loan/Home equity line of credit (i'm going to anyway - I need a car for my soon to be 16 yr old son). I figure that a modest $5000 account deposit and the offer of a loan agreement with a bank officer may be something to offer for the ability to order boxes of halves from them ( I'm thinking 3-4 a week). They are a business and do not profit from ordering coin for a customer( they pay a fee for every box of coin they order). I have to deal with banks and I want something in return. I dump the majority of my "tailings" at the bank that holds my mortgage.

Shop your loans/savings/direct deposit paycheck. This is what banks want, tell them what you want. Someone will take you up on a deal! Also, ask for a free safety deposit box. I got mine for free.

Hope this helps.

[brian0918]

I started ordering from three different branches of my bank and dumping at one branch where they gave me bags and were perfectly happy accepting bags of coin. I did dimes for several weeks with no problems, but after switching to halves for a couple weeks, all three banks cut me off completely. I have to believe my dump bank called around to find out where they were coming from, because the other three branches didn't seem to care at all that I was ordering them.

[Bigsarge]

I order about 2 to 2500.00 a week from my CU. Their pretty cool about it as long as the rejects don't end up in their coin counters. I have a seperate dump bank for that. As I told them, I don't want to search the same ground twice.

[tedandcam]

Gotta be real careful where you dump. Even if it is a different branch of the same bank. They are taking it on the chin coming and going. Remmber they are a private business deigned to make money. Banks with different branches have employees that "float" from branch to branch to cover days off and vacation time. These employees notice folks like us and they quickly realize they are in a losing proposition. It only takes one mention of what they are seeing in front of a member of manegment and its game over.

You need to have something to offer them, be up front and talk to a bank officer or branch manager. They are business people responsible for profit margins. You can find someone willing to swallow the cost of providing boxed coin to get you as a new customer. Remember its not gonna come in writing, its gonna be a handshake and a promise. Find out what its gonna take for them to say yes to providing coin. Then get them to agree on an amount of coin, 3-4-5-6-10-20 boxes of halves a week whatever your working capital will allow. Now you have someone in authority in your corner when folks get snippy behind your back about what you are up to and they are tired of toting those heavy boxes.

Having some type of business to offer them is your leverage to get coin. It can be a $5000 one year Certificate of Deposit , they can loan that money out now from a fractioal resreve for car loans, home mortgaes, HELOC... and make money. You can offer to take a car loan with them. Take an HELOC out. Refinance your mortgage. Whatever you would normally do with a bank or lending institution. They want your business...this is the time to get your coin. Although, do take in to consideration the rate you will be paying compared to rates you can get elsewhere. This can cost you more than what you will profit by searching coin. Offer them a one year CD up to what you would normally have in an account for emergency purposes.

If they say no just thank them for their time. Move on to the next place. Someone will take your business. If you don't have any real business to offer, then find a bank that has a coin machine. Offer to buy bags of coin from them. This can save them the cost of having to send out those bags to be processed. Someone may be willing to cut costs at their bank. Those bags may be short though. I haven't offered to buy anyone's bags. maybe someone else on here may be able to give you some insight on bags.

Good luck and don't give up. Hope I have been some help.

[Chief]

Gotta be real careful where you dump. Even if it is a different branch of the same bank. They are taking it on the chin coming and going. Remmber they are a private business deigned to make money. Banks with different branches have employees that "float" from branch to branch to cover days off and vacation time. These employees notice folks like us and they quickly realize they are in a losing proposition. It only takes one mention of what they are seeing in front of a member of manegment and its game over.

You need to have something to offer them, be up front and talk to a bank officer or branch manager. They are business people responsible for profit margins. You can find someone willing to swallow the cost of providing boxed coin to get you as a new customer. Remember its not gonna come in writing, its gonna be a handshake and a promise. Find out what its gonna take for them to say yes to providing coin. Then get them to agree on an amount of coin, 3-4-5-6-10-20 boxes of halves a week whatever your working capital will allow. Now you have someone in authority in your corner when folks get snippy behind your back about what you are up to and they are tired of toting those heavy boxes.

Having some type of business to offer them is your leverage to get coin. It can be a $5000 one year Certificate of Deposit , they can loan that money out now from a fractioal resreve for car loans, home mortgaes, HELOC... and make money. You can offer to take a car loan with them. Take an HELOC out. Refinance your mortgage. Whatever you would normally do with a bank or lending institution. They want your business...this is the time to get your coin. Although, do take in to consideration the rate you will be paying compared to rates you can get elsewhere. This can cost you more than what you will profit by searching coin. Offer them a one year CD up to what you would normally have in an account for emergency purposes.

If they say no just thank them for their time. Move on to the next place. Someone will take your business. If you don't have any real business to offer, then find a bank that has a coin machine. Offer to buy bags of coin from them. This can save them the cost of having to send out those bags to be processed. Someone may be willing to cut costs at their bank. Those bags may be short though. I haven't offered to buy anyone's bags. maybe someone else on here may be able to give you some insight on bags.

Good luck and don't give up. Hope I have been some help.

Some very good advice here.

[m21221]

Something else to consider is that some credit unions (mine) who have statewide branches monitor coin dumping. Regardless of the branch I dump at I will get a call if I exceed some undefined limit. On a side note, went through $2000 in halves this weekend...nota!

[everything]

I took a long break from halves, forgot why, but am giving it another try again. The branch I get them from changed over to a BMO Harris, I got a feeling they may cut me off. I know they don't like me ordering allot, two boxes seemed like a stretch to them, when I'd be more than willing to take 5-10k at a time if they would do it. Still, I just use this bank, I put $1500 in a savings account and don't use them for anything but boxes of coin.

[knibloe]

I have a supply bank for now. Both of the managers are retiring. The one left last week, the other is done on the 31st. I hope the new manager will let me continue to buy coin. The problem is that there is another guy who buy here as well. He also gets free bags from the bank and dumps them back. I can't see the new manager wanting to continue this.

There are some branches of my dump bank that don't ask for my account number. I try to dump there when I can. I feel that lessens my exposure to their "limits"

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

Spreading your action around to multiple banks helps keep you from being noticed as fast. Also, it pays to be nice to everyone. I just recently had one of the folks at one of my banks get promoted to branch manager at a branch across town.

Or just roll up a couple of boxes of pennies and buy a tank of gas with them. What are they gonna do.. cut you off?

Of course you could also spend some of those halves for gas.. easier than getting them to take boxes of pennies. Spend some of those halves into the wild and you won't have to dump so much.

[knibloe]

I pay my morgage and monthly credit card bill with halves. That accounts for about half of what I sort. The other half I spread out between three different banks and 20 branches.

[RobMc45678]

Hello all. Just a newbie question please. Since halves are no longer made, other then new rolls being deposited by people who do not realize they are depositing silver, how is it that halves are still found? I work at a bank so have access to ordering, but wonder if it is worthwhile. Thanks.

[ZenOps]

Several US halves were only 40% silver (1965 to 1970) Back in 2001, silver was $4.12 per ounce meaning that half dollar had 61 cents worth of silver in it. Very few coinshop and basically no refiners would actually give you 61 cents for it back then (lower purity usually gets much less than spot)

So what tends to happen, is that people "capitulate" the coins they have been holding onto and deposit them back to the banks at face value.

Canada is similar, during 1968 we made 50% silver dimes and quarters. One can still find them from time to time. A Canadian pure nickel hit 23 cents in 2007, and circulating coinage dropped a little bit. By the time it 4 cents, people capitulated their hoards back into circulation.

Its in many ways the ultimate game. Is 50 cents better off in ten pure Canadian nickels form ($2.30 in 2007) or one 40% US halve ($0.61 in 2001). The key is of course, timing and liquidity (finding a buyer at the price you want to sell or buy at) and if you are lucky - ounce or pound availability from circulation.

I've mentioned before that technically it would take 165 ($16.50) post-1965 dimes to make one ounce of nickel. I get the feeling this will become an increasingly important statistic in the future.

[scyther]

I've mentioned before that technically it would take 165 ($16.50) post-1965 dimes to make one ounce of nickel. I get the feeling this will become an increasingly important statistic in the future.

Maybe... but I think the copper would matter a lot more than the nickel. If it were silver, sure, the 10% would matter, but I think nickel is close enough in price to copper that, whenever the dime goes above face value (I hope not for a long time ), it will be traded mostly for copper content, with the nickel being seen as a "bonus".

[ZenOps]

I've mentioned before that technically it would take 165 ($16.50) post-1965 dimes to make one ounce of nickel. I get the feeling this will become an increasingly important statistic in the future.

Maybe... but I think the copper would matter a lot more than the nickel. If it were silver, sure, the 10% would matter, but I think nickel is close enough in price to copper that, whenever the dime goes above face value (I hope not for a long time ), it will be traded mostly for copper content, with the nickel being seen as a "bonus".

Thats the US style of thinking because you were one of the first nations to actually get rid of copper for your pennies. The UK went all the way to 1991, Canada 1996. Still, you could also think of it like 15 dimes equalling one ounce of copper. If the US should decide to stop circulation and melt all pennies and nickels someday, this will put a floor of copper at $1.50 per ounce.

Nearly a billion people in the euro already use copper in coinage form at a value of about $1.10 per ounce (the smallest denomination still holding 89% copper being the 10 cent euro) But, nearly a billion people in the Eurozone also use nickel at a value of surprisingly, $18.50 per ounce (approximately 2 grams of nickel in each 1 Euro coin, the smallest denomination that holds any amount of nickel)

Workers in India have been known to work for 3 to 5 rupees per day. A two rupee coin is 6.0 grams of cupronickel.